Unwelcome Dental Advice

Back in June, two Minnesota legislators were assassinated in their homes (State Reps Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark) and two more were brutally injured. Here was Dear Leader Trump’s response: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-call-walz-after-minnesota-shootings-calls-grossly/story?id=122870353

Instead of showing any sort of sympathy for the loss of life, he made fun of Tim Walz and called him a whacko. Conservatives on reddit had a little more sympathy, claiming that they wished for the assassin to be caught and killed. Others there could only talk about the “leftist response,” telling people that liberals were so wound up and needed to calm down or take it down a notch.

Now, as of six hours ago, and following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Dear Leader is blaming the “Radical Left” for the murder of his mouthpiece: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/09/10/trump-ally-charlie-kirk-shot-dead-university-event-utah/

The response from conservatives on Reddit has been… interesting. While many of them follow their Dear Leader’s inclination to blame the left, others flock to show their humanity by exclaiming that on this day, a kind, light-hearted father and husband were taken from us! This man was full of joy in what her stood for and was a pinnacle of Conservativism!

While I agree that the left’s response to this has been less than desirable in the grand scheme of things, and I certainly never wish for the death of anyone, I don’t believe that liberals are either to blame for his death, nor faulty for their belief that a hateful man died in that shooting.

I don’t like to use the word “hate.” As a writer, it’s about the strongest inclination one can use for despising someone or something. I don’t “hate” anyone. Well, maybe the 1982 Saint Louis Cardinals for snuffing out the only World Series shot the Milwaukee Brewers ever had, but that’s a different level of hate. I didn’t “hate” Charlie Kirk. I certainly didn’t agree with a single one of his stances, but I didn’t hate the guy. And I don’t truly believe many leftists hated him either. I just think there were varying degrees of dislike regarding his beliefs.

And let me tell you, Kirk’s beliefs were full of hate.

I’m about as far left as one can be. I support anti-hate, anti-fascism, race relations, gender rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and the list goes on. These things don’t make me “radical,” unless you mean “cool in the eyes of someone who agrees with those stances.” In that way, yeah, I’m pretty rad. The biggest things I think I agree with that would be considered “radical” are my stances towards the genocide of people in Gaza/Palestine and women’s reproductive health rights. For those of you out there who don’t speak polysyllabically, I support not killing innocent people and I support the right for women to have safe and secure access to abortions.

Charlie Kirk, on the other hand, hated – and I mean hated – many of my stances. Consider this stance on death penalties and the publicity he believed they should receive. He was quoted on his “ThoughtCrime” gig saying the following: “Death penalties should be public, should be quick, it should be televised, I think at a certain age it’s an initiation…” When asked by his co-host, Mark Posobiec, what age that should be considered to watch said executions, he stated 12. That’s TWELVE. (https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-death-penalty-public-executions-1873073)

Or how about his flip-flopping on civil rights? In 2015, he believed “MLK is a hero.” Then in 2022, “MLK was a civil rights icon.” But fast forward to 2023, he said, “MLK was awful. He was not a good person. He said one good thing he didn’t actually believe.” (https://www.wired.com/story/charlie-kirk-tpusa-mlk-civil-rights-act/) At a convention called “America First,” he went on to tell followers that the civil rights act in the 60s was a huge mistake because it ushered in “permanent DEI bureaucracy.” He believed that people of color shouldn’t have a fair shot at jobs, school entrance, or positions of power. I know this is a hot-button topic, but let me lay it down for you: if you believe EQUALITY and INCLUSION are “harmful” to America, I hate to tell you this, but you’re a fucking racist. These ideas were never about “balancing out” the number of brown and white people in the workplace, they were always about ensuring everyone gets a fair chance at a position, regardless of their skin color.

Kirk was also famous for his gender roles beliefs and his anti-LGBTQ+ agendas. Most specifically, he was all about roles in the household. He always believed women should prioritize family and their husbands over anything personal, like careers and aspirations. He also believed that birth control made women “bitter” and “ugly” as they got older. If he wasn’t married and had children, I would have told you that these kinds of beliefs are almost always held by someone who identifies as “involuntarily celibate.” Someone so insecure about their own place in the world that the idea that women have any power over them, either sexually or in the workplace, scares the hell out of incels. Grow up, dude. It might have some play in why he was so deeply against LGBTQ+ people as well, specifically against transgender people. He was staunchly opposed to gender-affirming care and trans athletes. People always hate what they don’t understand. Trans people are just trying to create a life from the body they were given, despite not feeling attached to the gender assigned to that body. While I can’t personally understand how that feels, I can empathize with what that means.

Empathy. Man, let’s talk about empathy. I believe empathy is the backbone of the entire liberal/progressive movement. If you think about it, inclusion and diversity fall in line with empathy. People on the left, while they may not understand what those who are disenfranchised are going through, have empathy toward those groups, and want to show their support for them by creating policies that include them and diversify our country. That’s like our whole thing. So, when Charlie Kirk got on a podcast and said, “I think empathy is a made up, New Age term that does a lot of damage,” I couldn’t believe it. I thought empathy is what separated us from lesser life forms. I even kind of figured that the Bible taught acceptance, and therefore empathy, towards our neighbors and others who looked different than us. Here’s the clip: https://www.threads.com/@amay.a100/post/DOb5S84DXpb?xmt=AQF0dct2QEqziQlP–Gv25ik-Mg0QVwJqeZtZ-vfcahxzQ&slof=1

This went on a little longer than I had hoped, but I just have so many disagreements with his whole platform. I want to end it on a bit of irony. Not because it’s “funny,” but because I feel like sometimes people reap what they sow.

So, let’s consider how things ended for Kirk. The moment he was shot, he was answering a question about how many mass shootings there were in the U.S. that were carried out by people who would have identified as “LGBTQ.” Kirk’s initial response was that there were “too many.” Too many? The total is five (that’s “5”). Now, also consider his inflammatory views on gun control. He believed that deaths to gun violence were acceptable to preserve the Second Amendment (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOb_BRukbmt/). So now, consider that Charlie Kirk died under a banner that said “Prove me Wrong” debating gun violence to his last breath. I don’t feel good about where this leaves us as a country.

So, I’m not sad about the death of Charlie Kirk, but that doesn’t mean I’m cheering his murder on, either. I’ll leave you with some videos of other people’s responses to this and let you all sort out how you feel about it.